Giverny and la Journée Patrimoine!

Hello again!

After a long week of classes and being as bored and antisocial as one can possibly be in Paris (i.e. not very), I had a weekend full of activities!!

Friday, my program had organized an excursion to Giverny, where we visited the house and gardens of Claude Monet, my absolute favorite artist, and the Museum of Impressionism, where we had a guided tour of an exhibition about Belgian impressionism and it's place in art history. It was a really interesting and informative visit. Me being me, I wanted to stay in the museum and the Monet gardens all day long. The museum was especially interesting because I just love to learn new things. However, if you put me in a museum with a lot of reading, you will find that I will NEVER LEAVE because I'm just too content to read every piece of information of the walls and displays. I guess I take after my dad in that regard.

Anyways, this weekend was the weekend of the patrimoine in France. Basically, there were a bunch of museums that gave free entry and places that aren't normally open to the public, like the president's mansion and Sorbonne, were open for business ("business" = tourism) for the weekend. So, naturally, I decided to take advantage of the rare opportunity to see these places. Like a crazy person, I woke up at 5:15 this morning to meet some friends outside the president's mansion at 6:30...we entered the estate around 10am. Yeah. We were those people. Keep in mind, this was after we had spent roughly three hours in a line ten times as long on Saturday. Long story short, we didn't see the president's mansion (a.k.a. le Palais d'Elysées) on Saturday because in three hours we maybe moved 50 feet...not far enough. So we met up early this morning and actually made it in! WHOOT WHOOT!

Waiting in line before the sun came up...we're crazy

La Salle des Fêtes, my personal favorite room

Yesterday, after hopping out of the long a** line, we picnic'd at the Luxembourg Gardens, took a tour of the Musée de Cloony (Museum of Middle Ages), where we found this little gem:

Harry Potter anyone?

Aaaannnd this...hehe. It probably shouldn't be funny.

Then we toured the Sorbonne, and then took a soggy walk through the Jardins des Plantes. THERE WERE WALLABIES AT THE JARDINS DES PLANTES AND I WAS SO EXCITED!! THEY WERE SO CUTE! Ok done.

WALLABIES! SO CUTE! TRÈS MIGNON!

And then I went ahead and did this:

Yup, that's a ticket for an FC Barcelona v. PSG game...

Oops. Not sorry. Not one bit.

Well, it's time for bed for this little Parisian wannabe. Bonne nuit!

IES Normandy Excursion

Thursday and Friday I got the opportunity to go to Normandy with my study abroad program. It was a really amazing trip. We toured the D-Day/Battle of Normandy Memorial Museum, visited Bayeux and saw the Bayeux Tapestry, went to a cider tasting at Sapinière, and visited the American Cemetery.

Normandy is absolutely beautiful and we were lucky to be received by warm weather and the smell of the sea, rather than the gray, rainy weather for which Normandy is known.

I was super excited to see the Bayeux Tapestry because last semester I took a literature class in which we spent several weeks studying and interpreting the tapestry. To see it in real life and hear (on tape) the story it tells was super awesome. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Aside from seeing the tapestry, while in Bayeux we also saw the Notre Dame de Bayeux. It's just as stunning as the Notre Dame in Paris, if not more so.

We stayed at a youth hostel that was SUPER close to the beach. I was welcomed into my room by a GIANT spider on the wall. Yikes! Not to worry, though, one of the girls staying in my room killed it with her shoe. On Friday morning before breakfast, I got up early and went and walked around the beach as the sun came up. Super beautiful.

My friend, Sara, from the program, and me on the beach.

After breakfast we went to the American Cemetery, basically a giant memorial to the American soldiers who lost their lives fighting alongside the French during the Battle of Normandy.

Omaha Beach, where some of the fighting took place.

We then proceeded to our cider tasting at Sapinière farm. Before the tasting, though, we got a small tour around the farm and learned about how the different ciders and pommeaux are made. The tasting started with a regular apple juice. This was probably the best apple juice I've ever tasted. Then we tried a young cider, which didn't have much taste to it, followed by a more aged, sugary cider, which was pretty good, followed by a pommeau, which was very strong and definitely had the highest alcohol content of all the drinks. That one wasn't my favorite. Personally, I was really digging the apple juice, but hey, we can't all have mature palates. ;)

Aaaaaaaaaaaannnd end the Normandy trip. :( I would totally go back, although I could see how it would be difficult to do without a car (we traveled by bus and the streets were far too narrow for that giant thing! Also everything is really far apart) and a tour guide to show you where to go. It's definitely a beautiful place that I would recommend visiting if you ever get the chance! 

Climbing the Cathédrale Notre Dame

So, this really isn't intended to be a blog on which I write a lot. I am mostly using it as a place to post pictures and keep family and friends updated. That being said, the English major in me just can't resist typing down a few words with each post. I'll keep it brief, don't worry.

Last night, the IES Staff members treated all the students in the program to a nice dinner in the city. We ate at a restaurant called the Café Louis Phillipe. All I can say is that the food was delicious and the dining room was lovely! The French really know how to to give a really great culinary experience. As an appetizer, I had a goat cheese stuffed tomato on a small bed of greens topped with a creamy vinaigrette. For the main course, I had grilled salmon, steamed potatoes, and some roasted veggies. Finally, for dessert, we had this delicious chocolate mousse, cake thing. My hat's off to the chef. C'était délicieux!

Good job, Louis Phillipe, good job.

After dinner, some friends and I went down to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up and sparkly. It was truly amazing. Admittedly, after the first time you see the Eiffel Tower in person, it's daytime appearance seems less grand. However, the tower's underwhelming appearance during the daylight is more than made up for by the magnificent glow of the tower lights at night, especially when all the lights start to twinkle at the beginning of each hour. It's truly an amazing sight.

Today, I sacrificed my weekend morning z's, woke up early and hopped on the metro towards the Notre Dame. A couple of friends and I had planned on getting to the cathedral before it opened to avoid the long line of people waiting to enter and climb to the top of the towers. Our plan was very successful as upon arrival we noticed that the line was practically non-existent. We waited for about an hour for the tower tours to start so we could begin our ascent. Let me tell ya, 422 steps are not easy on the calves...or the butt. It was a rewarding climb, though; the view from the top was stunning. I felt like I could see over the entire city, although I know that that's not true because it was super overcast this morning. Anyways, to avoid making this post any longer than it already is, I will share some pictures now. Never trust a writer when they say they'll be brief.

This is me trying to be artsy....oops

Random Wandering

One of the best things about being in a new place is the freedom to wander about and stumble upon great things. The school I'm attending is a short metro ride away from some of Paris's big attractions, like the Louvre and is just down the street from Montparnasse Cemetery. After today's orientation session ended, a few friends and I wandered around the cemetery. I'd only ever hear of Père Lachaise before so I didn't realize just how big Montparnasse is! I didn't even realize that some of the big name French authors, like Baudelaire and Ionesco, authors whose works I've read in class, are buried there. It was really cool, in a morbid sort of way, to walk around this cemetery and see the old tombs and mausoleums. 

Since I wasn't originally planning on visiting the cemetery or anything after classes, I wasn't prepared with my good camera. So I just have these (somewhat) crappy pictures that I took with my phone. It's better than nothing.

Anyways, after the cemetery we took the metro down near the Louvre and walked around Palais Royal. The courtyard/jardin was lovely with a huge fountain in the middle. Since the grass in France is considered precious, no one dares walk or even sit on it, so people strolled into the park with their own chairs. It was beautiful and calm and not as populated as one would expect a Parisian park to be. It was nice. I don't have any pictures from this trip to Palais Royal but here are some more from the cemetery. 

I promise I'll start taking better quality pictures soon. 'Til next time!